Reply to: No honour amongst thieves (or contractors)

[threaded]

OK, started a 3 month gig beginning July, line manager verbally offers extension as they’re happy with my work,

last couple of weeks chappy (fellow contractor) who sits next to line manager starts avoiding eye contact, acting sheepish, being over polite etc etc.

find out Im now potentially being backfilled, got access to a colleagues shared calendar, found out she’s interviewing candidates for my role, only its not a permy as I expected its line managers chum whos offered to do my job for cheaper rate.

rules of the game or skullduggerous nepotism?

When I catch wind of that kind of thing going off, I don't mention I know, but do mention my rate has gone up.

[daviejones]

Stab him with a fork??? Try it, you will feel loads better!!!

[Iron Condor]

Im now potentially being backfilled

Was having your back filled part of the orginal job spec?

[BrilloPad]

OK, started a 3 month gig beginning July, line manager verbally offers extension as they’re happy with my work,

last couple of weeks chappy (fellow contractor) who sits next to line manager starts avoiding eye contact, acting sheepish, being over polite etc etc.

find out Im now potentially being backfilled, got access to a colleagues shared calendar, found out she’s interviewing candidates for my role, only its not a permy as I expected its line managers chum whos offered to do my job for cheaper rate.

rules of the game or skullduggerous nepotism?

You are going to have to have him terminated.

[Jog On]

had a contractor in my last gig who stopped turning up in the mornings (until about 10:30-11), deciding to leave everything for me to do. At the same time he was invoicing from about 6 am every morning, full days on the weekend etc while trying to do as little as possible and get me and contractor_03 to do it all.

Eventually there just weren't enough of us there to cover the workload one morning due to this guy skyving off and end_client (big bank) complained to clientco (big hardware/software company). One of our primary objectives of the gig was to "make clientco look good in front of the bank"

What happened next was a kind of landslide/domino effect where everyone involved pushed whatever buttons involved to get rid of him and he got phoned up and told not to bother coming in.

When agency phoned him to tell him this he tried to take me down with him (unsuccessfully)..

Almost the entire department had a party when they heard the news that he'd got his kharma and he was the subject of much laughter and ridicule. My favourite story is the one when he tried to claim a full day (from 6 am) for the day he got given the chop and told not to bother coming in!

Screwing over the client is one thing, screwing over your team mates is another and I personally believe it will come back on you.

Screwing people over at all is just bad for business

Just feel better in the knowledge that you're the better man and this other contractor will one day inevitably screw himself over.

[NickFitz]

Undercut him!!!

Work out what the absolutely minimum you can work for is, and go to your line manager with it.

They'll either take your offer, or make him reduce his even further. Either one of these is a winner.

This IS business - we're all competitors.

Don't forget: leave anyway. Just do as Sal says to make sure that he's forced to accept your ludicrously low rate when you walk away, or the even lower rate he offered in response to yours

[alreadypacked]

OK, started a 3 month gig beginning July, line manager verbally offers extension as they’re happy with my work,

last couple of weeks chappy (fellow contractor) who sits next to line manager starts avoiding eye contact, acting sheepish, being over polite etc etc.

find out Im now potentially being backfilled, got access to a colleagues shared calendar, found out she’s interviewing candidates for my role, only its not a permy as I expected its line managers chum whos offered to do my job for cheaper rate.

rules of the game or skullduggerous nepotism?

My advise is don't do anything, take it as part of contracting.
If you do something this time and something worse happens next time, you may feel the need to do something worse. It's a small world, in a few years people will be saying "I would not touch that guy he's a complete nutter, did you hear what he did at ..."

Last day bring in some cakes, smile and walk away.

[DaveB]

Sorry for going O/T, but I had a conversation about changing dates on files sometime ago. Yes we could do it and it worked for what we wanted to do, but one chap said that there is some underlying date in NTFS or somefink that would show up the actual creation date of a file. What is the story here?

The file creation info in the document itself and the date that shows up in a directory listing are two different pieces of data. You can change one without changing the other. The link I posted and other tools like it modify the creation date at the file system level and to all practical purposes this is not something that can easily be identified.

In theory you could go down to the disk level and look for files located in adjoining physial areas of the disk and compare creation dates to the suspect file but it's not reliable given the way that file systems allocate space when files are created.

[HairyArsedBloke]

This may come in handy.

Sorry for going O/T, but I had a conversation about changing dates on files sometime ago. Yes we could do it and it worked for what we wanted to do, but one chap said that there is some underlying date in NTFS or somefink that would show up the actual creation date of a file. What is the story here?

[DaveB]

It's probably nothing. You'll be there for ages, so walk tall like you own the place.

And leave a couple of hundred meg of hot girl on girl on donkey action in his home drive, and emailed to his boss beore you go.

This may come in handy.

[swamp]

It's probably nothing. You'll be there for ages, so walk tall like you own the place.

[DaveB]

You're going to tulip in someones bin aren't you?

Sliding it down the back of a radiator works better

[SallyAnne]

got 3 weeks left to think up a nice leaving present

You're going to sh1t in someones bin aren't you?

[badgerpig]

cheers folks,
Im taking the "business is business" attitude, I think its the general MO of the team, they all seem to be snidey smiling assasins, will be glad to get out if Im honest, got 3 weeks left to think up a nice leaving present

[SallyAnne]

Undercut him!!!

Work out what the absolutely minimum you can work for is, and go to your line manager with it.

They'll either take your offer, or make him reduce his even further. Either one of these is a winner.

This IS business - we're all competitors.